UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh is seeing an increase in kids hospitalized due to a rise in infections from the COVID-19 virus but the uptick is “not yet dramatic,” according to Dr. John Williams, the chief of pediatric infectious diseases.
However, he said, the risk for children is greater than ever before.
“We’re at a particularly risky phase of the pandemic for children,” Dr. Williams said Wednesday at a press briefing for the hospital system. “Children under 12 are too young to be vaccinated, and a key way to protect them is for those over 12 and their parents to become vaccinated.
“These young children are at a higher risk for becoming infected now than at any other time during the pandemic.”
Dr. Williams cited two reasons with the increased risk: the delta variant, which he said is more contagious and more easily spread than the previous strain, and the relaxation of mitigation measures.
It is too soon to tell if the start of the school year will lead to a greater increase in COVID-19 cases among children, Dr. Williams said.
After starting the school year with differing guidelines and requirements based on school district or facility, a statewide mandate requiring masks went into effect Tuesday.
A group of parents from three school districts and the Republican leader of the state Senate filed a lawsuit challenging the mandate, and groups of students in Western Pennsylvania districts protested the requirement Tuesday.
At UPMC, Dr. Williams said the hospital system supports guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics that recommend universal masking for teachers, staff and students – regardless of vaccination status.
“We know how to keep kids safe and some of these tools are the same tools that we’ve been using for the past year and a half: masking, vaccination and testing,” Dr. Williams said.
Kids under age 12 are not yet able to receive the vaccine, so Dr. Williams urged those over the age of 12 and their parents to get the shot to help slow the spread.
National data shows that in states where the vaccination rates are low, hospitalizations of children are four times higher than in states where vaccination rates are high, he said. For people aged 12-17, who are eligible for the vaccine, unvaccinated teenagers are hospitalized 10 times more frequently than their peers who are vaccinated.
In Allegheny County, about 58% of all residents are vaccinated.
UPMC estimates it has seen 11,400 hospitalized patients for COVID-19 across its facilities in the state.
The Children’s Hospital is not releasing daily numbers of cases due to privacy concerns, according to Dr. Williams. He did say the hospital has seen a “modest” increase in cases in outpatient clinics, the emergency department and inpatient settings, including the intensive care unit.
Overall, UPMC says the risk of being hospitalized with COVID-19 is 29 times higher for individuals who are not vaccinated than someone who is.
The delta variant is spreading among groups of people that many health professionals previously considered less vulnerable, according to Dr. Rachel Sackrowitz, the chief medical officer at UPMC’s ICU Service Center and the executive vice chair of the Department of Critical Care Medicine.
The average age of UPMC’s hospitalized patients is almost 10 years younger than at the peak of last winter’s pandemic in December 2020, she said.
“These are people who have few other health issues and would otherwise be looking forward to many healthy years ahead,” Dr. Sackrowitz said Wednesday, adding that the majority of individuals who are hospitalized with the virus are not vaccinated.
“We have the power to defeat this and collectively get back to our lives,” she said. “Vaccination, masking and early treatment – this virus will have met its match but we won’t be successful without your help.”
About 70% of workers at UPMC are vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus, Dr. Sackrowitz said.
The hospital system has not required for the vaccine for workers. It is focusing on communication, building trust and enhancing information about vaccine efficacy and hesitancy, Dr. Sackrowitz said Wednesday.
It is safe for unvaccinated health care workers to deliver care, she said.
Meanwhile, researchers at UPMC are developing a new antibody treatment that they say could prevent patients who have been infected with the virus from being hospitalized.
The treatment relies on monoclonal antibodies, or potent versions of the natural defense that bodies use to fight off an infection.
The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization to permit the monoclonal antibodies as a treatment option for COVID-19 patients in 2020. This February, UPMC partnered with the White House COVID-19 Response Team to expand use of the treatment.
UPMC’s research shows that as many as 70% of patients that would have been hospitalized are now avoiding hospitalization if they get monoclonal antibodies, according to Dr. Derek Angus, the executive vice president and chief innovation officer at UPMC and chair of the Department of Critical Care Medicine.
A study included two antibody combination treatments and found “the best monoclonal antibody has been the one that’s available to you,” Dr. Angus said Wednesday. “The treatments that we’ve compared so far look very similar to each other and they’re safe. They appear equally effective.”
Now, the researchers are collecting data to see how the treatments perform against the delta variant.
Lauren Rosenblatt: lrosenblatt@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1565.
First Published: September 8, 2021, 7:09 p.m.
